Gregor Asshoff, the chief investment officer of SOKA-BAU, the German organisation overseeing the pension funds for employees in the construction industry, is stepping down at his own request in June, the scheme announced yesterday.
Asshoff has decided to leave the pension scheme – which has more than €14bn in assets under management –to continue to work as a lawyer and investment consultant.
He has served for almost 10 years as board member and co-chief executive officer of SOKA-BAU, ULAK (the organisation overseeing the holiday and wage compensation fund for the construction industry), and ZVK, the supplementary pension fund for the construction industry and the largest of the two with around €10bn in assets.
Asshoff started his career at SOKA-BAU in 1995, working as head of the European department, leaving just over a couple of years later to join IG Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt as head of department for politics and policies until 2015.
He served on the board and supervisory boards of several pension and social security funds, and as chief financial officer of the supplementary pension fund of the painters and varnishers – Zusatzversorgungskasse des Maler- und Lackiererhandwerks VVaG.
In 2015, Asshoff returned to SOKA-BAU as a member of the executive board and, in the past few years, he steered the pension scheme’s strategy towards private market investments.
After Asshoff’s departure, Werner Schneider, head of the asset management division at SOKA-BAU, will take over the role of CIO.
Schneider, who has served in his current role since 2008, has joined the executive board of the scheme, effective 1 April. He will lead SOKA-BAU together with Gerhard Mudrack, who has been a member of the executive board since 2020.
Schneider has held various positions at SOKA-BAU and, as head of the asset management division, he was responsible for the allocation of liquid and illiquid assets of one of Germany’s largest pension funds.
In his new role, Schneider is responsible for employee assignment procedures, asset management, IT operations, pensions and, together with Mudrack, is accountable for client and market development, corporate development, executive staff, and legal matters, the scheme said.
Replacing Schneider, Tobias Bockholt will join SOKA-BAU from WTW, where he was chair of the board of directors of WTW Investments, the unit overseeing investment consulting operations in Continental Europe.
In his previous role, Bockholt focused on serving institutional investors, particularly regulated institutions such as pension funds and employee benefit schemes.
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